Fred Quixote
Even conservatives think the presidential campaign of Fred Thompson is all but dead. His well-researched issue solutions such as tax reform have sunk out of sight within days after they were first floated.
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November 30, 2007
November 29, 2007
The real Ms America
An HH-60 Pave Hawk .50-caliber gunner, of course. More on Vanessa here.
First they came for piglet
But I didn't protest because I wasn't a piglet. But now the Musselmen are after Pooh. When he's named Muhammad, that is, only the most popular name in every Muslim country. Just don't be a gringo schoolteacher applying it to stuffed bears, ya dig? Or, better yet, find some more reasonable country wherein to teach. Pathetic.
UPDATE: Now the lunatic Musselmen want the offending schoolteacher executed. At least leave Pooh alone, okay? The bear of small brain is innocent, I tell you.
Standing to lose
Weight, that is. Sitting, it seems, turns off the enzymes in the body that burn fat. Standing, alone, won't get the enzymes cooking, but standing combined with puttering about will. Tough news for the culture of the keyboard and the couch. Unless you do away with the couch and the chairs.
November 28, 2007
Disbelief overcome by gravity
I read six of James Lee Burke's sixteen Dave Robicheaux detective novels, until, like Miriam, I got tired of the PC sermonizing. Plus they were all the same. Haunted Vietnam veteran, etc. The recovering alcoholic part I liked. Other than some howlers about the Civil War, and since most of the books are set in southern Louisiana, a place I've only visited a few times, I really didn't have a feel for their credibility. I finally crashed on the sixth one and have now burned to ash on one of his similar-tales Texas series, set in a mythical town somewhere north of Austin, which looks from the terrain descriptions to be Lampasas. Instead of the rampaging Italian mafia, we have the rampaging Chicano mafia. But why, I wonder, are his rural Texas deputies wearing campaign hats, like refugees from the Pennsylvania highway patrol? This guy is strictly for the New York trade, the folks who publish him. His mechanics are good, but his Texas is stereotypical: bigoted rednecks, etc. I'll skip the rest. Instead, I'm going to take Miriam's advice and try Lee Child's Reacher series.
Garish
Have to go with Op-For on this one. The colors are, to say the least, unpleasant to look at. But each one, they say, has a specific meaning for the Texas Air National Guard's 111th Fighter Squadron, which was established ninety years ago. This was President Bush's old unit, by the way.
Annapolis photo-op
In the end, it seemed to be just a chance for President Bush to show that he was "doing something," in photos of him and the unrepresentative Palestinian leader and the wildly unpopular Israeli one. But the American protestor above summed it up rather well, I think. For more, including more demo photos from both sides, go here.
National Confederate Soldiers Home
It began today, in 1884, in a seven-room house on sixteen acres at 1600 West Sixth Street in Austin. Five years later its backers were soliciting money from Union veterans to run it for the remaining 34 of the 113 veterans that had since occupied the house and an adjoining tent. The state took it over in 1891 and expanded it to twenty-six acres to include a hospital and cottages. Along the way it also housed impoverished veterans of the Spanish-American War and World War I. The last Confederate there died in 1954, age 108. The home was effectively closed in 1963.
Missing Mark
As one of the recent commenters at Mark in Mexico says, the last post in July was politically provacative enough--a Puebla state reservoir lined with toxic sludge--to make you think the proprietor might have joined the list of Mexico's involuntarily disappeared journalists. In any case, the blog has been inactive for so long now that the spammers are trying to take it over. It had become so popular that it was regularly cited by Instapundit, so it's hard to believe that it would just stop, without an adios, and its author vanish into cyberspace.
Helping players wee-wee
Hard as it is to imagine a football coach saying "wee-wee," that's the legend of how the popular (nay, ubiquitous) sports drink of Gatorade came to be, according to its inventor, Dr. J. Robert Cade, who died yesterday in Florida. He was 80. The first concoction wasn't so good, though. Native Texan Cade, who graduated from UT Southwestern medical school in Dallas, vomited.
November 27, 2007
The season of bloat
Miss Cellania has some funnies that capture the ongoing season of bloat far better than pictures of colored lights and dry slices of leftover turkey. Hey, look on the bright side: fat people are hard to kidnap.
Cooking Israel's goose
Thirty years after Jimmah Carter first twisted Israel's arm, American presidents are still at it, as Yaakov Kirschen reminds us.
Space weather's tenth
Space Weather dot com, which originally reported on the Sun-Earth environment but has since added a good many other subjects, as well, is celebrating it's tenth year on the Web.
Global baloney
November 25, 2007
Online shopping delays
I've been having trouble accessing Amazon all weekend. I was beginning to think it was my net connection, but I see here that many of the online retail sites are cratering under demand pressure. Not good, with Cyber Monday just a few hours away.
First freeze
It's a little early for an overnight freeze, and it's only forecast to be a light one of a few hours. But it's the perfect topper to a dreary, rainy, and cold weekend. There's five days left in the official hurricane season, but it's probably already over.
UPDATE: At midnight, we're at 37 degrees, and the mercury is headed south.
Osprey over Anbar
They're finally in theatre. Hope they fix that forward-looking gun problem, in case they need it.
November 24, 2007
Decision day
Good games today at 2:30 and 7 p.m. I'll be happy if OK State knocks off Zero U, but I'd be happy with either a Mizzou or a Kansas win. Just so long as the Big 12 is in the title game. Texas, outplayed and outcoached yesterday by Texas A&M looks to be well out of it no matter what happens. Their only bright spot: RB Jamaal Charles, who deserves a better team behind him.
UPDATE: The Okies won and so did Mizzou. Only bad thing now is that Mizzou has to beat Oklahoma for the Big 12 title, or the Big 12 is out of the National Title game. I think. It's all a little confusing, as usual, after several upsets. Strange season, this one.
November 23, 2007
Aggies vs Texas
It's Aggies QB Stephen McGee, the junior from Burnet (just west of Austin) leading the Big 12's No. 2 rushing offense, vs. Texas QB Colt McCoy, the Tuscola Kid (also call the "pistolas," or pistols, by Spanish-language sportscasters) who could break 3,000 yards passing for the season today and help his team get its seventh consecutive 10-win season, the longest such streak in the country. Hook 'Em!
UPDATE: The Horns are really stinkin' up the joint. Three and out, three and out, three and out. Meanwhile, the Ags have become a successful passing team. Which makes sense. Pass defense is Texas' worst characteristric this season. So it's 17-3 Ags. Fortunately, there's still another half for the Horns to figure out how to play football.
FINAL: They almost did, but it wasn't enough. Ags win, 38-30, for the second year in a row. Another disappointing season for Texas, but this time without an injured Colt for an excuse.
November 22, 2007
The Big 12 North
It's a pleasure to see Kansas and Missouri in the BCS' top five, because they're bringing back the early overall credibility of the Big 12 conference, which has fallen on hard times in recent years. Only Oklahoma and Texas, in the South division, were playing tough and ranking high. So, after Texas whoops the Aggies tomorrow, and Oklahoma holds off (maybe) their in-state rival Oklahoma State on Saturday, we will settle in to watch Kansas and Missouri go at it that night. I'm rooting for Kansas, since their QB, Todd Reesing, is a local talent. Besides, I'd really like to see the Big 12 in the national championship game and Kansas has to win for that to happen.
The capacitor peddlers
Silicon Valley Redneck thinks Austin's mysterious electric energy breakthrough company, EEStor, doesn't smell like roses. "Snake-oil," he calls it, marshalling some numbers based on the firm's very few pronouncements, to show why. The recent, unexplained departure of Mort Topfer, the former Dell vice-chairman from EEStor's board, suggests SVR could be onto something. That their Web domain is for rent/sale is also not encouraging.
MORE: Things looked a little rosier back in January when Technology Review did this piece.
Nacogdoches is full of roaches
Grandma came down from Fort Worth for Thanksgiving and Mr. B. insisted we all watch "Duck Soup" for the umpteenth time. He likes all the gags, especially the peanut-lemonade vendors routine and the mirror number. Doing a little Web research I was surprised to see that the brothers (top to bottom: Chico [Leonard], Harpo [Adolph], Groucho [Julius Henry] and Zeppo [Herbert]) got their start as a comedy act in 1912 while singing at the Opera House in Nacogdoches ("Nacogdoches is full of roaches," and "The jackass is the flower of Tex-ass"). Another Texas first. Glad they laughed.
November 21, 2007
Priest Holmes retires
It's a shame to see the former Texas star retire forever from football, but I suppose after his 2005 injuries and two years needed for recuperation, it was to be expected. Now, I wonder if we'll be seeing him return to Texas like other former Longhorns have, or at least to his hometown of San Antonio.
Life is like dodgeball
No kidding. And that's just one of the fifty rules kids won't learn in school, according to author Charles Sykes. They do waste an inordinate amount of time trying to keep the playground at Mr. B.'s school safe for everyone's self-esteem. Sticking out your tongue, for instance, is a reportable offense. Too bad the real world doesn't operate that way. I like this one because it's so true: "Be nice to nerds. You may end up working for them."
Via Cobb, who takes his Scout son target-shooting. Now that's good training.
The trashing of the swords
Hilts, blades, all broken. Some blades snapped in half, others broken off at the hilt. Like the discarded hardware of some ferocious battle. Except they're all plastic, or foam. And the fights have been mostly with trees. So we gathered them up and put them in the trash, to make way for the next rearming of the combatant, piecemeal or wholesale, as it may be.
November 20, 2007
The Annapolis nonsense
Once upon a time, Condoleezza Rice was so cool that she--not just a woman, not just an African-American, but also a hard-nosed, no-nonsense intellectual--was touted as potential presidential material. I don't remember when that idea died, but I think it was about the time she started pressing the Israelis to negotiate peace with their sworn enemies, the rocket-throwing, suicide-bomb-wearing Palis. Now she's forcing them to meet next week in Annapolis for some kind of pointless "peace" conference, the usual intellectual nonsense no one believes in. Too bad. She isn't "Condi" anymore, but just another forgettable, no-talent bureaucrat who will be replaced with another one after the '08 election.
UPDATE: Fred on Annapolis...
"I hope we don’t try to push the Israelis into an agreement just for the sake of an agreement unless both parties are willing, and express a willingness, to have peace and the terrorists renounce terrorism."
...in the transcript of Pajamas Media's interview of him.
The quick-connect plug
The Minn Kota trolling motor worked fine in reverse yesterday getting the family sloop out of the slip at the marina. It also worked in forward, to get out of the marina altogether for an hour of sailing, though it was a bit slow at checking the heavy boat's reverse motion. Then I smelled something burning. It was the plastic Minn Kota Trolling Motor Plug ("Quick Connect Plug With Snap-Lock Design for 6 to 12 Gauge Wire Sizes") connecting the power leads from the motor to the extension leads from the battery. Fortunately no flames. Just melted the plug ends together, making the ensemble permanent-snap-lock and no-release-at-all. So I've ordered a new plug. This time I won't use a screwdriver to bend the connectors so the plugs will hold together. Maybe taping them together with Velcro will work. Sailing was fine, as always. It's the "iron sail" that's the problem, as usual.
The little blue marble
A humbling view for the Earth-centric (aren't we all?), taken by the HDTV camera aboard a lunar-orbiting Japanese robot satellite out in the black. It's mapping the moon in high-definition for possible future Japanese landings.
November 19, 2007
Bring 'em on
I always liked the idea of Iraq as flypaper for the bad guys. As American casualties rose, the notion fell out of favor for discussion except by critics of the effort. Maybe, too soon.
Reduced speed ahead
Mouth of the Brazos finds Cormac's McCarthy's latest violent epic "too far down the Oprah road" for enjoyment.
By the numbers
Some may say this would have been the result if we'd had more troops in Iraq in the first place. But the cause of these declining numbers is more likely to have been the switch in tactics, from conventional to counterinsurgency--which is, in itself, the wave of the immediate future of American war. Some contrarians are even calling it the most successful military campaign in history. Hope that lasts.
Via Instapundit
November 18, 2007
The sticky wheel
Moral: never go to a Pinewood Derby with a car with a sticky wheel. I thought we could get away with it, after the epoxy spread to the wheel from where I had applied it to hold the axles on the wood. I turned it a few score times and applied powdered graphite to the axle and the tread in hopes of making it slippery enough that it would at least slide quickly. It came in 66th, dead last. It not only lost its three heats, it never got all the way to the finish line, but slowed and stopped about two-thirds of the way down the track. Next year, when Mr. B. is older and doesn't have to rely on dumb old Dad, he should do better.
November 17, 2007
Fence donations
If the feds won't build the southern border fence, and so far they won't, this outfit will raise money to do it.
Comet Holmes
The moon has all but obscured Comet Holmes' big fuzzball, but it was still dazzling in this Nov. 11 view from southern France. The streak on the left is the track of a satellite. Speculation here on why Holmes' dust cloud is so big.
Weigh-in day
Have to get our Pinewood Derby racer weighed today and leave it with the race officials for tomorrow's competition. We wound up using some tungsten putty, after all, gluing it to the bottom of the car with epoxy. That way, if we're a little over the maximum of five ounces, we can shave some of the putty off. Something tells me we won't be so lucky this year as last when we won third place. But we'll see.
November 16, 2007
The Clinton News Network
The unacknowledged anti-war activist who just happened to show up at CNN's Dem "debate":
"Activists have just as much right to ask questions as anyone else. It's just that when their activist backgrounds are known but not disclosed, the false impression is created that they might as well be ordinary Americans selected at random. Why, they're just plain folks like you sitting at home!"
November 15, 2007
Defusing car bombs
The booms that won't be booming:
"Yesterday a joint US-Iraqi force with help from local anti-al-Qaeda awakening fighters in the Adhamiyah district in northeastern Baghdad found and disarmed more than 20 vehicles rigged as VBIEDs in a parking lot."
Talk about progress in the Iraq campaign. Wow.
Space needs men (and women)
Robots, alone, no matter how perfectly programmed, will never do:
"The station’s cost and complexity dwarfs any other international technical project in history. But such machines, built by people, are imperfect, and now and then, they will break down. To make the station work, we’ll need capable people on the spot. No robot we can build can cope with the complexity of what we’ve already built, what we’re now attempting in orbit."
What privacy?
Politicians like Ron Paul pretend they can help you keep your privacy if you vote for them. Flapdoodle. The IRS and the credit card companies already have all the details anyone needs to know about you--names, addresses, social security numbers, etc. Get over it.
Via Cobb
UPDATE: Paul has his own currency, without even being president. Well, it's not his. But his face is on it.
Bigger than the sun?
That's Comet 17P/Holmes (left), at least in the 1.4 million kilometer diameter of its dust cloud. But it's nowhere near the mass of the sun, of course, compared here to Saturn. Thank goodness. Got a little scary there for a minute, right? It's also an unaided-eye fuzzball in the Constellation Perseus.
November 14, 2007
Trolling motor installed
Got the propane torch working Monday to finish soldering all the electrical connections and so I mounted the Minn Kota 55 on the motor mount on the family sloop this morning--snaking the power wires through the cavernous compartment under the cockpit to the midships battery. Wired and locked the thing to the mount to prevent theft by a casual thief. (A determined one wouldn't be deterred even by a chain.) In reverse, with the dock lines on, the 55 piles about an inch of water against the stern. So we're good to go on the first light-air day. The wind was whistling in the rigging this morning, not a day I'd normally go out even with an outboard. Cold front tonight will probably kick up more wind. So maybe Saturday will be the first chance to try it out on a sail.
Take-away Aaron
Former Longhorn Aaron Ross thoughtfully lives just two minutes away from practice with his team, the New York Giants, and already is third in the league on interceptions. Sanya's beau is doing good.
November 13, 2007
The million-member force
The story behind VALOUR-IT
"For accomplished soldiers who have just had their independence ripped away, anything that can shorten that process is welcome. For Chuck, it was a computer. 'When you’re using something that takes your mind off the pain…you get the benefit of your body being able to recover without being heavily drugged,' he said."
Give 'til it helps, won't you?
The other Young
Vince Young's former Longhorns' roommate, Selvin Young, set a Bronco's record Sunday of 100 yards against Kansas City. The low-priced free agent is Denver's No. 1 RB and looks to stay there.
Curious ostrich
Or a hungry one. He stuck his head inside the car when Mr. B. and his Mom and Grandma toured Fossil Rim, southwest of Fort Worth, on Sunday. It was such a surprise, they didn't get a photograph of it.
November 12, 2007
Stranger in the nest
I'm borrowing the title of a 1999 book by the late University of Texas psychologist David Cohen for the title of this post, but it's really about research to be released Thursday by the AAAS's Science magazine. One is not supposed to bust their news embargoes but, let me tell you, the NYTimes and other newspapers do it constantly, and may do so on this interesting genetic finding. If so I'll update this with a link. Seems medical researchers at Harvard have discovered that, while most of our genes have chromosomes contributed by our mothers and fathers, nature can turn off the contributed genes in some cells in an event called "random monoallelic expression." Which would explain why some of us might not get the diseases--even genetic ones--that our parents suffered. It might also help explain why some children are so different from their parents. Cohen used previous genetics findings--and his own parental experiences--to assert that, whatever they may think about it, parents actually have little ability to affect how their kids turn out. He might have been more accurate than he knew.
Lt.jg. Frank E. Hand, III, R.I.P.
The remains of South Carolina native and P-3 Orion co-pilot Frank Hand, lost with eleven other crew members when their plane was downed off the coast of Viet Nam in 1968, finally have been repatriated and will be interred today in the Dallas-Fort Worth National Cemetery. Four F/A-18 Hornets will fly over the service for the Eagle Scout who grew up in Fort Worth.
Via Patterico
The muleshoe brand
Cattle brands are registered, and the muleshoe one (an inverted U) is semi-famous. On this day in 1860, cattleman and soon-to-be Confederate veteran Henry Black registered the brand, though others elsewhere in the west would also register variations of it. By the time of his death in 1906, Black's Muleshoe Ranch covered 10,000 acres of Stephens County, in north Texas west of Fort Worth, and he owned another 30,000 acres.
November 11, 2007
Horns up
Nice to see the hardworking Jamaal Charles, No. 25, finally coming into his own as an RB, with 170 or more yards in his last three games. Nice, also, that the coaches' poll moved Texas up to No. 11. They certainly played up to their old standards yesterday. Remains to be seen if the BCS computers agree, or better. Or worse.
UPDATE: BCS is worse, No. 13. Oh, well. At least two more games to play to finish the season.
Yay Us Day
Next year I'll get something new, but for the second year in a row, I think this will do for Veterans Day--the seal/decal of my old OCS class and the various places we served in Vietnam. Also this, which takes me back to the American Revolution, on my mother's side, to Thomas Farrar, a lieutenant colonel in the South Carolina "line" of the Continental Army, and Claudius Pegues, Jr., a captain in the South Carolina militia. I suspect our military service goes back much farther, but I don't know anything about it. And, while we're at it, let's not forget the wannabees, who are sure to be strutting around today in their phony uniforms. No sweat. Let them play, if it makes them feel any better.
Veterans Day
Well, what do you know? Google's not just an international phantom, after all. They have a country.
November 10, 2007
Adios, Norman
I always thought loudmouth, pugnacious Mailer was a bore, and that was even before my beautiful but alcoholic and suicidal aunt told me she thought he was a genius. His "The Naked and the Dead" war novel was, uh, pretty awful. Like something a staff officer would cobble together about the combat he never saw. This piece sums NM up much better than I can, or would even want to. Adios, Norman. Now go fade to well-deserved obscurity.
Via Roger L. Simon
Longhorns vs Red Raiders
This is the old Texas, scoring on just about every possession, going into the half 28 to 20 against Texas Tech. RB Jamaal Charles is one of the reasons, bringing his great play of the fourth quarters of the last two games into the first half of this one. The "pistolas" (pistols) Colt McCoy, as they call him on Spanish station KNWX-AM, helped by having only one interception, for a change.
UPDATE: The old Texas, indeed, with their most dominant performance this year, including a spectacular touchdown run by McCoy breaking two tackles. Texas wins 59-43. If they play like this next week, Texas A&M will go down easily to give the Horns a 10-win season.
MORE: Tech coach Mike Leach, the pirate from the prairie, spouts off. Big surprise.
Piggy parade
The A-10 Thunderbolt (aka Warthog): The Air Force's dirt divers, on parade, ground support par excellence.
Early Veterans Day gift
Hollywood's latest crop of anti-American war flicks are tanking at the box office, which AFP blames on war weariness, but the comments beneath the piece at Breitbart.com tell a different story which most veterans will appreciate this Veterans Day weekend: Hollyweird finally, deservedly, is a victim of itself.
Via LGF
Everyone's wicked stepmother
It never occurred to me to believe the MSM notion that Hillarity could be elected president. Nominated? Sure, but not elected. Seems she's out there busy proving it already:
"...people began to giggle. At Mrs. Clinton, a woman who has never inspired much mirth. Suddenly they were remembering the different accents she has spoken with when in different parts of the country, and the weird laugh she has used on talk shows. A few days ago new poll numbers came out--neck and neck with Barack Obama in Iowa, her lead slipping in New Hampshire. There is a sense that Sen. Obama is rising, a sense for the first time in this election cycle that Mrs. Clinton just may be in a fight, a real one, one she could actually lose."
Well, now, be that as it may. If you want to see another presidential candidate go down in flames, nominate Mr. Barrack Hussein Obama. The Dems are hopeless for 2008. Not that I'm troubled...
November 09, 2007
Viva Zapata
So to speak. The old, long-gone revolutionary's grandson, his namesake, lives in poverty. His children apparently have joined the millions immigrating to the U.S. Vicente Fox, Mexico's first democratically-elected president, tried to better the lives of Mexico's poor. But even Fox said it would take a generation or more.
Via Instapundit
Pinewood Derby
Last year, our first race, we got all complicated. Bought tungsten putty to stuff in drilled holes in the body, polished the nail-axles, sanded the plastic wheels, lubicated with powdered graphite. Even bought a scale to weigh the car. Then got to the official weigh-in and discovered it was too light. So used their hot glue gun and lead weights to bring it up to maximum allowed: five ounces. This year Mr. Boy did more of it by himself, including the polishing and sanding and picking out a decal body surface instead of using paint and clear nail polish to make it shine. Might still use the nail polish, but we blew off the tungsten. Going to wait until the weigh-in and use the free weights and remember to space them out on the car's rear third, for fastest possible running. Last year Mr. B. took third place. This year?
Tech vs Texas
Going to spend the afternoon after school with Mr. B. in finishing his Pinewood Derby car for next weekend's race, but meanwhile I keep wondering if the Red Raiders will roll over the Longhorns tomorrow. Probably not, unless Texas plays the game the way they did the first three quarters last week against Okie State. With this 2007 Texas team you never can be sure, as BON points out: "Same as last week: who knows?"
November 08, 2007
What American Accent Do You Have?
Southern, I get, which is not a surprise to me. As these quizes making the rounds go, this one is interesting. Try it here.
Go get 'em, Rudy
Fred ain't dead, but he's sure flying under the radar, leaving Rudy to be hammered by the Left--counterproductively, of course:
"...the more vocal, vicious and unfounded the liberal attacks on Mr. Giuliani become, the easier it is for him to make his case to conservative primary voters that they agree on a lot more than they disagree."
Alas, I don't remember where I got the quote. My bad. Rudy also can string together a complete sentence without stuttering. Something the transcripts of his interviews show that Fred ain't so good at.
Revolution of Hope
"Ladies and Gentlemen," former Mexican president Vicente Fox used to begin his speeches. Such an innocuous phrase, yet it caused him enormous trouble in Mexico. Why? Because all previous presidents and most other politicians addressed their audiences as "Senores," i.e. "Gentlemen." There is little equity for women in machismo-land, you see, a place where even domestic violence is considered a husband and father's privilege. These are just a few of the revelations in one of the best political books I ever read, Fox's "Revolution of Hope." I learned more about Mexico from it than I ever learned living here, where even we gringos imagine that we have a certain kinship with Mexico. Fox encourages such feelings because he wants our relationship to grow stronger, and for us to be more welcoming of his paisanos coming here in the millions. I was not sympathetic to that before I read his book. Now I'm wavering. In his unparalleled candor and humor, he makes a compelling case for that and many other things. Ignore most of the critical commentary at Amazon's site for the book. His Mexican political enemies seem to have taken it over. Probably some "Senores," so-called. But do consider the book. You'll learn a lot about our closest and, potentially, best neighbor.
November 07, 2007
Osprey surge
According to the MSM all they do is crash. In fact, the new MV-22 Osprey Tiltrotor is part of the USMC's surge in Iraq.
To Die in Jerusalem - the unsung hero
Soccer Dad reminds me of this Bret Stephens piece that shows why the new HBO documentary, "To Die in Jerusalem," is unworthy of much consideration, especially because it follows the journalism of the day in ignoring the hero who thwarted the Palestinian murderer's intention: Haim Smadar, the supermarket guard and father of five, who alone prevented the beastly killer the documentary romanticises from taking a score or more victims with her. Mr. Smadar, R.I.P.
Move toward a declaration
On this day in 1835, with armed hostilities already in play, Texas colonists took the first step towards what would become their March 2, 1836, Declaration of Independence from Mexico.
November 06, 2007
Donate to Valour-IT
No time like the present to help Soldiers' Angels help a wounded soldier, sailor, airman or Marine with a free voice-activated laptop to allow him/her to communicate with friends and family, prepare for a job, etc. You don't have to give a lot. Every little bit helps.
Death of a young princess
Akaky outdoes himself in this essay on the unexpected death of a young friend. A pavane, indeed.
The Music Box
The Laurel and Hardy DVD I ordered came yesterday and Mr. B. and I watched the 1932 Oscar-winning classic "The Music Box" in which Stan and Ollie try to get a crated player-piano up a looong flight of steps. Mr. B. laughed so hard he couldn't sit up. He actually became breathless. I began to wonder if he has asthma. Probably not, or it would affect him playing basketball, and it doesn't. He found the hat-trading sequence the most hilarious. So L&H have a new fan. Physical comedy and slapstick just plain appeal to kids. Adults doing what kids want to do, even if they usually don't because they know they won't get away with it. Next up: Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last." Later, the Marx Brothers.
Gaza vs Hamburg
Readers over at Simply Jews are debating what Isaelis should do about the continued rocket bombardment from Gaza. The usual and, I think, easy, high-mindedness is in evidence--Jews don't stoop to the level of the enemy--as well as realism that nothing will change until the cooperating Gazan civilians, young and old, pay a price along with the masked gunmen of Hamas. I side with the realists, just as did the so-called Greatest Generation--at Hamburg, Dresden, Yokohama, Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as Bret Stephens relates. High-mindedness is good, but the cost of keeping your conscience clear will be the certain deaths and cripplings of young soldiers who would no more lob rockets at a daycare center than strap on a bomb belt and detonate themselves in a crowded supermarket. Ethics in warfare have to be situational, as Stephens also seems to be saying, and the deciding factor must be the probable results. In Gaza, that would be an end to the rockets and, quite possibly, something approaching the German and Japanese surrender.
November 05, 2007
Family sloop's free scrub
Steve, a rare reader who recently bought a used Hunter 22 sloop at Anderson Mill was using scuba gear to inspect his new craft's bottom Sunday and afterwards swam down a few slips to check ours. Said scrubbing the algae off revealed clean blue paint from the cleaning job we got done at Commander's Point in the fall of 2001, and the swing keel and cable looked fine. Appreciate it, Steve. Sorry the motor isn't behaving. Steve picked up the recalcitrant Suzuki DT4 I left at the dumpster not long ago and paid for some fixup. It ran a while for him, even idled okay, but then it quit and refused to start. Good luck with that. I hope finally to get the new trolling motor working this week.
Winter's coming on
Strong cold front out of northwestern Canada is due through here tonight, after a week of cool mornings getting us ready to change seasons. Bit early for a freeze, but the LCRA's Bob Rose and other meteorologists say there'll be a light one tonight in hills west of the Rancho--while today's forecast high of 87 degrees will plunge 25 degrees to just 63 by tomorrow afternoon.
At-Home Dad Convention
Rockets over the Spurs
Mr. Boy exulted Sunday when a teammate's absence meant that he got to play all four quarters of his youth basketball game at the J. Usually he only gets to play two quarters as their three-on-three games split the difference between two units on each team. His Rockets won, they said, but we're not sure what the score was. Only the kids kept track. The coaches want it all to be fun, without pressure. Of course the kids create their own pressure. This, his third game, was Mr. B.'s best. Good sportsmanship and no tantrums when the ref corrected him. He only got called for traveling twice and double-dribbling once. He made seven two-point shots, grabbed a half dozen rebounds, and refrained from yelling at his teammates when they made a mistake. He was pleased with himself afterwards, but so thirsty he drank a whole bottle of Gatorade.
November 04, 2007
Excalibur
This is the GPS-guided artillery round that's putting the cannon cockers out of business. In Iraq and Afghanistan they're already being handed rifles and turned into infantry. Because with Excalibur, you don't need a barrage of shells to be sure you have eliminated a target. One is all that's necessary.
I think they're going to lose, Dad
Second grade boys are like first grade boys and kindergarteners. They go with the winners. They don't waste effort being loyal when a team is losing. Thus Mr. B. decided at the end of the third quarter of the Texas-Oklahoma State game that he'd had enough. Texas was losing 35 to 14 and he had better things to do, like play his Harry Potter computer game. I was still hoping for the comeback, but admitted I was getting less confident by the minute. You'll miss the end of the game, I said. Dad, he said, I think they're going to lose. When they won he made me describe how they did it, and I tried, but better descriptions are here and here.
November 03, 2007
The so-called United Nations
Better known, increasingly, as the Dictator's Club: "...the world's most pretentious, self-serving and corrupt organization..." A one-year-old plea (worth rereading) to take care of Iran's nuclear reactor because it's quite clear that the UN will never do a thing about it. Well?
MORE: Not surprisingly, the club wants to take away your right to defend yourself. Afterall, how can a dictator be assured of perpetual reign if his victims have guns in their homes? But Fred Thompson, for one, is fighting back to preserve the Second Amendment.